"Saving Private Ryan" is this summer's everymovie.

I Find Karma (adam@cs.caltech.edu)
Tue, 4 Aug 1998 05:51:04 -0700

"Saving Private Ryan" is a horrifying, visceral experience in which we
are plunged into the middle of battles with such in-your-face
restrictive vantages that all we can do is sit there and take it. Says
Slate, "These sequences carry a post-Vietnam aura of futility, and the
scenes between the skirmishes are similarly modern, full of rambling
talk and post-Godot waiting around." Mortality is everywhere: death can
come any time and from any direction, and the difference between who
lives and who dies is less a matter of skill than a matter of luck. The
movie's use of muted colors and handheld cameras gives the movie a
documentary-feel that heightens the sensation of being there.

Salon does a good job of comparing the movie to Catch-22:
> We die. We die like animals because we are animals. We are all creatures
> who blindly run until something big and hard hits us and our torn
> insides spill out and we die. "It was easy to read the message in his
> entrails," Yossarian thinks in "Catch-22" as he stoops over the
> whimpering, dying Snowden ("I'm so cold"), his liver, lungs, kidneys,
> ribs and stomach blasted apart by a three-inch piece of flak. "Man was
> matter, that was Snowden's secret ... Bury him and he'll rot, like other
> kinds of garbage."

Entertainment Weekly's online pages on Saving Private Ryan have lots of
interesting comments and details, too...

http://ew.com/

so I'm Cc'ing them on this mail to let them know I love 'em. Hopefully
EW will like my list below, too.

Like any good movie, "Saving Private Ryan" made me think about issues I
might not otherwise have thought about, and it changed the way I'll
think about World War 2. I loved this movie, and after a while, I
figured out why: "Saving Private Ryan" is so chockful of details, it's
like watching all the best elements of each of this summer's movies,
rolled up into a cohesive, thought-provoking package. Below, I attempt
to demonstrate how "Saving Private Ryan" is this summer's everymovie.
(I know some of my parallels are weak, so bite me. I was inspired by
that list in 1995 that "Pocahontas" was that summer's everymovie. :)

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
A group of eight men is assembled for a mission requiring
bravery, teamwork, talent, and male bonding. Climactic scene features a
"Good Will Hunting" star in a pivotal moment.

ARMAGEDDON:
A group of eight men is assembled for a mission requiring
bravery, teamwork, talent, and male bonding. Climactic scene features a
"Good Will Hunting" star in a pivotal moment.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
A bunch of people acting and talking like animals.

DR. DOOLITTLE:
A bunch of animals acting and talking like people.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
In the context of frightening battles, we learn how one soldier
can make a big difference.

MULAN:
In the context of frightening battles, we learn how one soldier
can make a big difference.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
A former TV funnyman finds himself the protagonist in a surreal
world in which he must fight for freedom with everything he has.

THE TRUMAN SHOW:
A former TV funnyman finds himself the protagonist in a surreal
world in which he must fight for freedom with everything he has.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
Between graphic gross-out sequences, a team of buddies strives
for victory.

BASEKETBALL:
Between graphic gross-out sequences, a team of buddies strives
for victory.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
Amid scenes of mind-numbing violence against foreigners, some
American pals fight for their captain so they can go home to their
families.

LETHAL WEAPON 4:
Amid scenes of mind-numbing violence against foreigners, some
American pals fight for their captain so they can go home to their
families.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
Against massive odds, a man trained in the skill of combat
avenges the death of his brothers.

THE MASK OF ZORRO:
Against massive odds, a man trained in the skill of combat
avenges the death of his brother.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
An Oscar-winning actor leads a seemingly fruitless effort to
find one man.

SNAKE EYES:
An Oscar-winning actor leads a seemingly fruitless effort to
find one man.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
A specially-assembled team of elite soldiers will stop at
nothing until their mission has been completed.

SMALL SOLDIERS:
Oh please.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
An old man reflects back many decades to a life-altering
experience in his youth in which many people died but he survived.

TITANIC (yes, this movie is STILL in the box office top 20):
An old woman reflects back many decades to a life-altering
experience in her youth in which many people died but she survived.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
Between disgusting gross-out sequences, a bunch of guys try to
locate a man and get him out.

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY:
Between disgusting gross-out sequences, a bunch of guys try to
locate a woman and take her out.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN:
A movie in which soldiers bombed each other.

GODZILLA:
A movie which bombed.

----
adam@cs.caltech.edu